A Conference on Policing & Insurgency

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Resisting Arrest: A Conference on Policing & Insurgency will consist of a filmscreening and discussion on Friday evening, April 10, and a full day of panels on Saturday, April 11, from 11am to 6pm.

Although the panels are separate, we encourage attendees to stay for the full day. The conversation will draw links across the panels and unfold throughout the day. Lunch and afternoon refreshments will be provided (please RSVP; info in sidebar). During lunch, there will be break-out discussions, led by activists and educators.

The three panels are, in order: Critical Theories of Policing, A Monopoly on Violence?, and Black Life Matters. The first will consider policing in light of several keywords, drawing connections between past and present. The second will consider how the state’s monopoly on violence has been challenged and how it is shifting and renovating in the present. The third will reflect on recent mobilizations against police violence from a variety of perspectives, to draw connections among movements.

To open Resisting Arrest: A Conference on Policing & Insurgency, we will screen the 1972 film State of Siegedirected by Costa-Gavras. This film is a fictionalized account of the kidnapping and assassination of the US public safety advisor Dan Mitrione in Uruguay by the Tupamaros National Liberation Movement. The film galvanized public opposition to the US police assistance program, which operated from the 1950s until the mid-1970s in over 40 countries across the so-called Third World.

Set in an earlier moment of entanglement among police, intelligence, and military agencies, this film will set the foundation for our discussions of the conference’s themes of policing and insurgency.

After a brief introduction beginning at 6:00pm, we will watch the 2-hour film (in French, with English subtitles) and follow it with a discussion.